a lookup mystery. Very strange. yes/no? Does the domain exist or not?

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Chalmers <robert at chalmers.com.au> writes:

    Robert> I am coming across something I can't explain.  If I lookup
    Robert> a domain with whois, it can say "No match"....

    Robert> Yes, nslookup returns a match, and a ping finds it.  Even
    Robert> if I try other whois servers, it still wont match, yet
    Robert> nslookup can find it. How is this so?

The information in some whois server's database isn't necessarily in
the DNS. And vice versa. The situation with zones like .com is even
more complicated because there are multiple registrars. If you ask
whois.networksolutions.com, it will only return info about zones that
were registered with them. For names registered with other .com
registrars, it'll refer you to that registrar's whois server.